If I Had to Learn a Language as an Adult Again: 10 Things I’d Do Differently (Part 2)
Welcome back. If you missed Part 1, it covered the foundations: grammar, vocabulary, a review system and an exam.
A quick recap for anyone new. I came to Almería 13 years ago for a job, with no Spanish at all. Not a little bit. None. These days I get by fairly well, and I know exactly where my weak spots are. If I’d done all ten of these things from day one, my Spanish would be incredibly fluent by now. I didn’t, because I had other priorities. I’m sure you have yours too, and they won’t always leave room for full immersion in the language you’re studying. So take what fits your week and let the rest go.
Part 1 was the foundations. Part 2 is about the things that fill an ordinary day: your phone, your telly and your pillow.
5. Let your phone do some of the teaching
Most of us already carry a language school in our pocket. We just use it for WhatsApp and the weather. This is what I’d set up on day one.
Change the language on your phone. Every menu, every notification, every “Are you sure you want to delete this?” becomes part of your new mental programming: a small lesson you can’t skip. And because you already know where the buttons are, you can still switch between apps without panicking.
Bookmark a good translator. I’d keep DeepL one tap away, for the moments a message arrives and you need to know whether you’ve been invited to dinner or asked to move your car.
Download an online dictionary for single words and short phrases (I use WordReference), so you’re not stuck at the pharmacy counter doing mime.
Take an online level test every so often. The score is nice. The more useful part is the questions you get wrong. Write them down: that’s your next study list, and someone else has written it for you.
And a language learning app. I joined Duolingo in 2014, and the app has improved enormously since then. It sends you reminders. It drops you into leagues against strangers. It lets you team up with friends so you can encourage each other, or nag each other, depending on the friend. Every trick in the book to keep you motivated. If Duolingo isn’t for you, try Memrise or Airlearn. What matters is building the habit, until skipping your daily lesson feels strange.
6. Be stricter about what you watch (and scroll)
We all have our guilty binge watches, and there’s definitely a place for them. Some evenings you just want to switch off and be entertained. I’m most vulnerable late at night, in bed, when I tell myself: “I’m just gonna wind down with a bit of X or TikTok.” Before I know it, I’ve lost a couple of hours of sleep and filled my head with moving images of the worst of human behaviour.
But if your social media is full of content that doesn’t help you, teach you or inspire you, you have to decide whether being entertained while standing still is enough. Jim Rohn put it like this: “We must all suffer one of two things: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret or disappointment.” I’d put a simpler question on a sticky note. Producer or consumer?
Keep your eye on the prize, and limit your social media. What I’d do:
Open a new account that’s purely educational, full of listening content in the language you’re learning. Your main account can keep its guilty pleasures.
Set a clear time allowance, with an alarm if necessary.
Switch off email notifications and anything else that pings you away from what you sat down to do.
Language note: “keep your eye on the prize” means stay focused on the goal you really care about. The Spanish equivalent would be something like “no pierdas de vista el objetivo”.
7. Use affirmations to train your listening and pronunciation
Top athletes and performers use affirmations and visualisation to get in the zone. I don’t see why language learners should be left out.
Listening to affirmations in your target language does three jobs at once. It boosts your listening. It gives you short, clear sentences to repeat, which is pronunciation practice in disguise. And it makes you feel good about yourself and how far you’ve come, which on some days is the hardest part.
Search YouTube for affirmations in the language you’re learning, then filter for what you like: the voice, the music (I like the resonance of 432 hertz), the length and the topic. Then plug in at night. Better still, write your own affirmations and use AI or an app to turn them into speech, in a voice you’d like to sound like. Lay them over a nice instrumental track and you’ve got your own personal pep talk to play on repeat.
One word of warning: be careful with EarPods. I find them very handy, but I’ve overused them and started getting headaches. The science isn’t settled on whether they do any harm, so keep some wired headphones or a mini speaker handy and don’t overdo it.
8. Keep a book by the bed
The last one in this part is the simplest. A book on the bedside table. A pencil, for underlining. A notebook, for the words worth keeping. Your phone, for the word you can’t wait until morning to look up.
No exam and no league table. Just a few pages before the light goes off.
Once my son was old enough to understand the Spanish fairy tales I read him, I started taking the book back to my own bedroom afterwards and noting down the new words. It was surprisingly satisfying. Children’s stories are simple to follow, so I could work out the meaning from context, jot down what was new and still read at a pace that didn’t frustrate me.
Coming up in Part 3
That’s points five to eight. Part 3 is about people: clubs, language exchange partners and getting the person you share a sofa with involved.
If you only try one this week, make it the phone. You’ll be learning every time you open a menu, and you won’t even have to find a pencil.
English classes for adults in Almería
If you’re learning English as an adult and want someone to fill in the gaps your apps can’t, I teach adult and business English classes in Almería, including in-company training for teams. Get in touch through Study4English.